And Baasha slept with his fathers, and was buried in Tirzah; and Elah his son reigned in his stead.
Baasha's reign ends with the same calm words used for better kings. He dies, he is buried in his capital, and his son takes the throne. Yet God had just sentenced his house to the same ruin that fell on Jeroboam's family. So what does this quiet ending mean?
Commentators note that the record adds a further verse to explain why God dealt with this family:
And then a further verse is added, to stress the reason: God judged him and his family because of his idolatries and his murder of the house of Jeroboam… God looks upon the heart. He sees him only as an assassin carrying out his ambitious plans, killing king Nadab and the entire house of Jeroboam.
Baasha reached the throne by murdering his predecessor. God's message to him told the story of his rise differently.
The history records that Baasha had murdered his master to take his place as king. Yet God tells Baasha that He had lifted him out of the dust to make him ruler over Israel. We may be sure Baasha had not considered God at all when he took the kingdom. But now he must face this: God required something of him, because God had given him the place of rule.
His name itself, one writer notes, turned out to be a description of his rule:
Baasha came from common stock. Yet his name, "he who lays waste," describes only too well the sort of ruler he proved to be.
Baasha had been the tool God used to wipe out Jeroboam's family. What came next carries a warning for anyone who judges other people.
Baasha, God's instrument of judgment to exterminate the house of Jeroboam, was now to face the same judgment he had meted out. It is easy, we find, to condemn others and deal harshly with them for their sins. How solemn when we then go ahead and repeat the same sins ourselves! This is no trifling matter before God.
The sentence fell on Baasha's whole house, not on the man alone. Baasha himself went to a grave like his ancestors.
Jehu prophesies against Baasha, who had struck down the house of Jeroboam. He pronounces on Baasha the same judgment that had already fallen on Jeroboam… Still, Baasha, just like Jeroboam, "slept with his fathers."
The son named in this verse did not hold the throne long:
Baasha personally was buried when he died, and his son Elah took the throne, though only for a short time (two years).
The verse names Tirzah as his burial place. Baasha had made this city his royal seat, and its name points to what is pleasant.
He was from the tribe of Issachar, and he had that tribe's trait — an eye for what looked "pleasant." So he made beautiful Tirzah the royal residence during his reign. Some trace its name to ratzah, which means "pleasant." He may have known something of God's purpose in cutting off Jeroboam's house. Even so, his motive was not righteousness. He was no better than the men he murdered, and he went on walking in their sin.
The verse before this one sends readers to the royal chronicles for Baasha's deeds. One writer draws a sharp line between those chronicles and Scripture.
These chronicles have nothing to do with the Word of God. They record what it has not pleased the Lord to record or to explain. These chronicles are now lost… The believer has no need for any of them; he has God's Word. In God's account he finds all that he needs, and God's own evaluation of people, events, and things. Writings that are not inspired may record certain deeds, and record them with great exactness. But nothing more than a human evaluation ever goes with those deeds.
The royal records that once listed his "might" are gone. The short notice God kept has outlasted them.
These things fall into ruin and disappear. The Word of God remains — the only monument, the only document that cannot be shaken!
- Dust — God says He lifted Baasha out of the dust to rule Israel. The place was a gift, and it carried a demand Baasha never considered.
- Waste — his name meant "he who lays waste." His reign matched it: he destroyed Jeroboam's house, then repeated Jeroboam's sins.
- Sentence — the man who carried out judgment on another family came under the same judgment himself. Writers read this as a warning to anyone quick to condemn.
- Grave — Baasha was buried in peace at Tirzah, yet the sentence on his house still stood; his son Elah held the throne only two years.
- Word — the royal chronicles that recorded his might are lost. Only the inspired record survives, and it alone gives God's own evaluation of the man.
And also through the prophet Jehu the son of Hanani the word of Jehovah came against Baasha, and against his house, even for all the evil that he did in the sight of Jehovah, provoking him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam; and because he had smitten him.
Baasha wiped out the family of Jeroboam, and that act carried out a judgment God had already announced. Now the prophet Jehu brings God's word against him for that very act — how can God condemn a man for doing what He decreed?
The verse reads like a closing note on Baasha's reign, and it names two counts against him. One is "the work of his hands" — his idols. The other is the house he struck down:
An extra verse is added to stress why God judged Baasha and his family: his idolatries, and his murder of the house of Jeroboam… God, who looks upon the heart, sees him only as an assassin carrying out his own ambitious plans, killing king Nadab and the whole house of Jeroboam.
The last words of the verse are "because he destroyed it." Baasha struck one guilty house down, and now the same sentence falls on his own:
Baasha was God's instrument of judgment to wipe out the house of Jeroboam. Now he had to face the very judgment he had handed out. It is easy, we find, to condemn others and deal harshly with them for their sins. How serious it is when we then go on and repeat those same sins ourselves! This is no small matter before God.
Baasha had watched God's word come true on Jeroboam's house, and learned nothing from it:
He sinned as Jeroboam did, though he had been the one who carried out God's judgment on the descendants of the wicked king. He had not heard the Lord's voice speaking in the events of the past… "I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat." Such is divine justice.
A different Jehu — not the prophet of this verse — carried out the Lord's judgment on Ahab's house. God still called him to account for the way he did it:
God takes into account not only what men do, but their aim in doing it. Jehu carried out the Lord's judgment on the house of Ahab, and on all his guilty partners, until not one of them remained alive… But he was harsh in carrying out the Lord's just judgments, and his reasons for that harshness were selfish. Both were far from acceptable. So by the mouth of the prophet Hosea He says, "In just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel."
Baasha fails the same test. He killed Jeroboam's family, yet "his motive was not one of righteousness… for he was no better than those he murdered, and continued to walk in their sin" (C Knapp).
A wicked act can serve God's plan and still leave the doer fully guilty:
The believer's heart finds great support in this: neither the wickedness of man nor the schemes of Satan can frustrate any divine purpose. Rebels against their Maker, whether human or angelic, are forced, despite themselves, to contribute to the final result as He planned it. This does not, of course, lessen their wickedness in the smallest degree. God and His purposes have no place at all in their thoughts.
God's message to Baasha starts not with his crimes but with his rise:
The history records that Baasha had murdered his master to take his place as king. Yet God tells Baasha that He had lifted him out of the dust to make him ruler over Israel. We may be sure Baasha had not considered God at all when he took the kingdom. But now he must face it: God required something of him, because God had given him the place of rule.
God's word through Jehu came true. Zimri later killed Baasha's son Elah and wiped out the whole family, "sparing none, neither of his relatives nor of his friends… exactly as God had determined it should be" (C Knapp).
- Lifted. God says He raised Baasha out of the dust; the throne was a gift, and a gift makes a man answerable.
- Charged. The verse names two counts together: the idols his own hands made, and the blood of the house he destroyed.
- Weighed. God takes into account not only what men do, but their aim in doing it — as Jehu also learned.
- Responsible. Wickedness cannot wreck God's purpose. Serving that purpose does not make a man less wicked.
- Repaid. Baasha became like the house he wiped out; Zimri finished his line exactly as the prophet had said.
In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah, Elah the son of Baasha began to reign over Israel in Tirzah for two years.
Elah, the son of Baasha, takes the throne of Israel in Tirzah for two years, while Asa is only in his twenty-sixth year over Judah. The verse reads like a routine date-stamp, but commentators treat it as the first line of a sentence God had already passed on his father's house.
Elah inherited a house that a prophet had already spoken against.
The history of the kings of Israel becomes increasingly dark and tragic. The curse of God rests on this apostate line. Elah, the son of Baasha, reigns two years (v. 8); Zimri, who held high rank in the army, kills him at Tirzah while he was drinking himself drunk. So the word of Jehu the prophet starts to come true: "As soon as he sat on his throne, he struck down all the house of Baasha. He did not leave him a single male of his relatives or his friends" (v. 11). … When a man's heart is turned away from God, each of his deeds carries the mark of it, and that is how a mass of sins can pile up in so short a time.
Elah's father Baasha chose this capital, and the city's name tells you what drew him to it.
He was of Issachar, and had the tribal trait — an eye for what appeared "pleasant" (Genesis 49:15). So he made beautiful Tirzah (which some derive from ratzah, "pleasant"; see Song of Solomon 6:4) the royal residence during his reign. Whatever he may have known of God's purpose in cutting off Jeroboam's house, his motive was not righteousness (like Jehu's, later). He was no better than the men he murdered, and he went on walking in their sin.
Scripture records almost nothing Elah did — except one thing.
Elah was no different from his father in his evil character. For two years he evidently reigned only for his own pleasure. The only specific action we read of on his part is that he was "drinking himself drunk" (v. 9). It is not surprising that his own servant conspired against him and killed him. Elah left himself open to any kind of assault by his drunkenness, and his own servants had reason to despise him.
The timing makes it worse. His soldiers were in the field, and his own steward had a hand in it.
How tragic! King Elah indulging his own appetites, drinking himself drunk! His steward Arza helping his master do wrong! All this while the people were encamped against the Philistine city of Gibbethon! No wonder one of his top military officers takes advantage of this to assassinate him! Wrong as this was and always is, we tend to sympathise with Zimri rather than with drunken Elah. Nor can we forget that the wrath of man shall praise the Lord, and the rest He will restrain (Psalm 76:10). So God's judgment overtook the house of Baasha.
Elah is not the only king who did this:
David (2 Samuel 11), Belshazzar (Daniel 5) and Elah all indulged their own appetites while their people were at war. For each of them and for many others like them the results proved tragic.
Elah lived to please himself. One Man never did.
What a contrast we have in the Lord Jesus. "For Christ did not please Himself," we read in Romans 15:3. He alone could say, "I always do the things that are pleasing to Him" (John 8:29). No one could challenge this; rather, "As He was saying these things, many believed in Him" (v. 30). Self-control is also one of the Spirit's nine delicious flavours of fruit in Galatians 5. "Against such things there is no law."
Elah's two years close a family line. The record of it was not kept for curiosity.
In less than fifty years the first two dynasties of Israel's kings had come to an end and every member of their families had been wiped out. God meant their doom to be an example to those who would afterwards live ungodly lives. In these records they stand as warning lights. They warn every ruler and subject off the rocks that wrecked these kings forever. "Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them" (Hosea 14:9).
- Sentence — Elah takes a throne already under a prophet's word against his father's house. His two years are where that word starts to land.
- Setting — He reigns in Tirzah, the "pleasant" city his father chose for its looks.
- Self — Two years on the throne, and the only deed on record is that he drank himself drunk. He reigned for his own pleasure.
- Sword — He drank while his army camped against Gibbethon. That left him open to the officer who killed him. The same self-indulgence turned tragic for David and Belshazzar.
- Signal — Two royal houses wiped out in under fifty years stand as warning lights. The opposite is Christ, who did not please Himself.